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Just as Yogi Bhajan predicted, now more than ever people need to know how to quickly and efficiently deal with the pressures of the times.

Since 2002 when I discovered Kundalini Yoga I have watched the pressures of our technological ages consume more and more of our fading attention span and vitality. The demands we are facing as human beings has exponentially increased with the development in technology. In this pressure cooker inflicting pressure, tension and friction on us something profound is also happening. Mainly a viral need for physical, emotional understanding and wellness on a deeper and deeper level.

Last week I was honoured to take part in a Hatha Yoga Teacher Training(YTT), to introduce the technology of Kundalini yoga, Chakras, Tattvas and the Gong. I was so impressed with the young ladies who are doing the training. For taking the chance to go deep, connect with themselves and their soul. I joke that everyone now a days is a yoga teacher, but it makes me feel supremely happy as this is another sign of the change of the times. When I trained 15 years ago, my family thought I was nuts to turn in a good job as a lawyer to pursue teaching yoga, now it is common place.

From my experience what I have found is that Kundalini yoga kriyas and meditations are a quick and efficient way to release the stress and pressure of these times, more efficient than a cocktail or a movie. The pressure is not a bad thing. The pressure has made many look deep inside of themselves and ask the hard questions. Just like the girls on the YTT.

I feel personally this technology has given me a different perspective on life. A way that does not require me to follow a religion or rely on my teacher to initiate me. You can right here, right now in a very short time be connected to a deeper pulse of your life force which manifests in instant, peace, harmony, mental clarity, neutrality and wellness.

This is not some form of denial and fakism that pretends that there are no up and downs in life, gains and losses. But it does mean that I am training myself to use the now as a guide for joy, wisdom and learning to gain a greater understanding and experience of myself. This I was born to do. Join me all week as we practice kriyas and meditations to help you cope with the pressure and thrive.

We now know that our real soul mate is when we connect deeply with our spirit. Once we can feel our spirit, we can then start to bring that clear, real relationship we have with our self into relating with others.

The problem is that our relationships with our friends, partners, colleagues, students, etc. are always in a state of change. They are very complex. We need to keep a clear relationship with ourselves so we can extend that out through our electromagnetic field when we deal with others. This is called having an authentic relationship. Relationships even ones filled with conflict we deal with through integrity, kindness, intuitive intelligence and neutrally. You always express love, your authenticity and your soul, as opposed to your projected fears and defences that are provoked during challenging circumstances.

Now think of a time in your life when you felt the most authentic and your core self? What do you look, sound and feel like? With whom do you feel you can be yourself without feeling judged? How do you recognise an authentic relationship verses an inauthentic one where you have something to gain from displaying particular behaviour.

For me being authentic is saying what I mean and following through with my words. I have had to start being more careful with how I relate to people through my speech. Not just saying empty words to fill the time , or making empty promises to please people. I strive to hold the relationship with myself consciously, not to let myself down or anyone else down. To face relationships evening challenging ones with love first over projected fears and defences that are provoked by circumstances and act neutrally, from my soul.

The Practice

One Minute Breath: Tune in with Ong Namo, Guru Dev Namo 3-5x. Sit with a straight spine. Inhale deeply for 20 seconds, hold for 20 seconds, exhale for 20 seconds. You may start with 10 seconds and build up. Even if you do this for 3 mins it can really get you back in touch with the true, authentic self.

When you wake up in the morning or last thing before you go to bed, what are the quality of your thoughts? Tonight, and tomorrow morning write your thoughts down, do not edit the thought stream, just write down what you mind is chewing over.

Most of the time our thought process is negative, complaining, worrying. We did not get enough sleep or good quality sleep, our partner snored, or is on their iPad first thing in the morning. We do not feel we are getting enough love, prosperity, attention from our family and friends. It can be an endless list. We have touched on this subject before, when uncontrolled our negative, protective mind tends to take over the helm. It is the negative mind that dominates when we are unconscious and living automatically, as it is the first, strongest and automatic mind. These perceived or imaged disabilities can lead us to believe our lives are blighted or we are unlucky. Other people have it easier. These sentiments can turn into resentment and hate. The world order appears to be in this state at present. What we need to realise is that, this mental processing is draining us. The mind makes us feel guilty if we spend time enjoying ourselves or taking care of our needs. The mind is so busy judging the world around us and others that unknowingly it turns this same critical eye inwards and we always come up short or lacking.

Yogi Bhajan said, “Every disability is imaged, every achievement is an experience”. Can we try and practice that? No blame nor claim. No problem, literally as we are equal to every challenge we are faced with.

This week’s challenge is to spend 24 hours without having one negative thought or one negative word. If you start to think or say anything negative you start the 24 hours again. Let’s train our negative mind to be our servant and not our master. To have happier, compassionate and more flourishing life.

Death is the death of our physical body and five senses not of our soul. The soul moves either on to its next incarnation or to join with the infinite. Yogi Bhajan joked that it did not matter if you believed in reincarnation or not it happened despite one’s belief.

One of the reasons we practice yoga is as a preparation for the moment of death. That in the instance that our final breath expires, the soul is confronted with all you have done throughout your life and you must choose to forgive yourself at this moment otherwise attachment to shame, guilt, or pride can bring you back to the incarnations of life. We must make the conscious choice to move on into oneness or continue with the world as we have known it. Yogi Bhajan referred to this time as “choosing the cold path”. He said the soul would confront two roads, one cold and unfamiliar, one warm and cozy. The cold path would lead the soul onwards and the warm familiar path would lead one back into the womb for rebirth. To escape the wheel of karma is the goal of each soul, and so the moment of death is incredibly important, as that is when the choice is made. The discipline of sadhana, cold showers, waking up before the dawn and keeping up in meditation. These practices train the mind to follow choice and intention rather than laziness and habit. We are literally training ourselves to take the difficult cold path but ultimately more rewarding road to enlightenment.

In the moment of death, mantra can help a soul move into the blue ethers and escape the electromagnetic field of the earth. The difference between dying with a swear word on your lips and dying with “Waheguru” can make all the difference. There are many stories from India of parables about this. One story that I love is that a very bad man, a thief and liar was killed by a man named Ram. In surprise, he exclaimed “Ram!” (a name of God in addition to the man’s name) and was surprised to find himself elevated in a more powerful incarnation, such was the power of the vibration of the name.

Whether you believe the parables or not, Yogi Bhajan gave a mantra called the “Pran Sutra” which literally means the “Teaching of Life Force” and gives us a tool to use at the moment of death to train and focus the mind onto a higher vibration.

The Pran Sutra mantra is “Nanak too(n) lehanaa too(n) hai Guru amar too(n) veechaariaa Dhan Ram Das Gur Jin sireeaa tinia savariaa. This mantra brings you through the energy of the first four Sikh gurus, ending at Guru Ram Das, Lord of Miracles and the Guru associated with the heart chakra. It focuses the consciousness of the reciter onto the energy of the heart, the energy of miracles, and entreats divine assistance with the passage of life.

The Pran Sutra is a tool given by Yogi Bhajan to prepare our soul to take the right steps in the moment after we pass. It is a beautiful gift that we can give to ourselves and a wonderful teaching to include in our life as well as our death.

We need to fill ourselves with value everyday, this can be done by chanting or singing from our heart feeling the joy and fullness there or by breathing the fragrance of love in to our hearts. If you do not do this on a regular basis you will feel a deep sense of emptiness which you will fill up with unconscious habits and patterns which make your external world more valuable than your inneral one.

Self– esteem is the fragrance that emanates from the Self just as kindness, self-respect, self-love all originate from this place too.

5 Ways To Gain Self Value

Command the Mind

The mind tells us constantly what we are worth. Whenever you attempt to move forward in your life, it is the mind that sends the deluge of critical, judgmental and self-hating thoughts. You are not your thoughts. Daily meditation is non-negotiable now in order to develop a relationship with your mind. Commanding the mind is a full time job. It is becoming a witness to your thoughts and refusing to react or act until you are clear.

Trust Yourself

We all have an inner compass that guides us through time and space. However, we have been taught and trained not to trust it. When my teacher Shiv Charan told me about my inner compass, I simple could not believe it. I was always someone who did not trust myself and looked to others, teachers etc. to know better than myself. When you give other people power over yourself you are doubting your own value. Only you can really know what is best for yourself. This does not mean you dismiss everyone elses opinions. You can listen neutrally to the opinion and see if it resonates with your heart. Truth is a frequency of energy that will resound with your Self or not. Your Mind is not your inner compass. Test this out when you listen to people. Do you feel YES and it feels right or NO which feels a bit off or wrong –like you suddenly are lopsided?

Know yourself and value yourself

Can you really say you know yourself? Chances are there are parts of you that you need to embrace. The only reason you don’t accept yourself is that you have written a self-concept of you that is not the truth. Most people want to be someone they’re not. Look at the magazine racks. They sell you how not to be you, to aspire to be someone else. You lower your self-value when you compare yourself to someone else.

Instead of comparing yourself, get to know yourself. Spend time alone and out of the conditioning field of other people so that you can really feel what it is to be YOU.

To start to know YOU, ask yourself questions and answer them in truth:

What uplifts your Spirit?

What opens your Heart?

Embrace your Perfection

Your mind is always telling you are lacking in some way and you need to prove yourself. The mind will tell you that you are not smart enough, attractive enough, successful enough–basically you are not good enough and you have no value. This can be happening at the unconscious level and perhaps this wound has been handed down through your ancestral lineage. This energy will drive you to make choices that are not correct for you in order to prove yourself.

Before any action, take time to question your motivation. Ask yourself, “Why do I want to do this? Am I trying to prove myself to someone? Prove that I am a good friend, partner, worker, loyal? Am I feeling worthless right now and trying to escape from these painful feelings?” The Truth is that you are Perfect and Whole. Focus on feeling full in your heart and this will allow you to embrace your imperfections as perfections.

Let Go of the Past

People can recount all the horrible things that have happened to them in their past and all the people who are responsible for their low self-esteem. The ego’s version of letting go of the past is seeking some kind of vengeance or payback before moving on. Or diminishing the pain, “It wasn’t that bad, my friend had it worse.” To truly let go of the past, you have to go into the dark recesses of the subconscious mind and at the cellular level. This means rolling up your sleeves and feeling all the pain that is associated with these memories and let go of these feelings.

Cross left under right arm on your shoulders, bow your head to your heart, take the value from external things to your heart and chant , “Gobinda, Gobinda Hari Hari chant for 11 mins. Translates to sustainer and supporter of all.

For me Superwomen Syndrome seems to come out in the run up to Christmas when I host my family, it is the busiest time work wise and added to that this year we had a Level 2 Retreat for 6 days, with students flying in from Asia and me having to teach.

When I read an article on uber females, hardworking, health obsessed, they want to have it all and do it all, relentless in their drive to be over achievers and prove their worth. I realised that Kundalini Yoga is a balm for this new psychological monster.

Have you ever felt that your check list was taking over your life? One girl described her life as setting the clock forward so she gained an extra 11 mins on everyone. She would wake up at 6.11am, do 30 mins of exercise, make a two course breakfast, fruit salad and chia porridge, read the paper and listen to radio 4 whilst eating, checking off health, fitness and current affaires on her list. Work hard but also make a point to be kind to people look after her nephews once a week, ticking of responsible and supportive boxes. I am not critising this girl but asking us to question ourselves why we do not feel enough as we are?

PRACTICAL QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF?

Are you living this life or existing within a self-inflicted regime?

Whose approval are you seeking?

If you stopped your check lists for one day, what do you think would happen?

When did you start to feel you needed to achieve in order to feel worthy?

Do I feel uneasy when not doing something worthy? But for every good decision there is always a better one, this bombardment of choice puts us under great pressure.

When can I give myself time out from my regime?

Is my regime a container which holds my life together?

Do I depend on my external world for myself of worth?

What practice can I start, positive affirmation etc. to find internal security.

We need to move away from putting our security into activities and achievements and move them into our internal self. When doing all your good activities do them mindfully, not just to fill time or automatically by route. Spend time everyday feeling how good it feels to be you inside your body. This can only come through physical awareness. Do not seek out approval from the outside world, i.e. posting all your achievements or things you are doing on social media. Keep a few things private achievements just for you, feel good about them even if not one else knows. Practice this kriya for self-love. I think why everyone loved the book/film Bridget Jone’s Diary is because the hero Darcy loves her just the way she is. When you start really accepting yourself as you are from an internal sense of wellbeing you realise you are better than you ever imaged you could be.

Posture: Sit in Easy Pose with a straight spine and hold your right palm six to nine inches above the top centre of your head. The right palm faces down, blessing you. This self-blessing corrects the aura. The left elbow is bent with the upper arm near the rib cage. The forearm and hand point upward. The left palm faces forward and blesses the world.

Eyes: The eyes are closed and focus at the lunar centre in the middle of the chin.

Breath: Breathe long, slow, and deep with a feeling of self-affection. Try to bring the breath to one breath per minute: Inhale for 20 seconds, hold for 20 seconds, exhale for 20 seconds.[1]

Time: Continue for 11 minutes. Then inhale deeply and move slowly and directly into position for Exercise 2.

This exercise will benefit everything between the neck and navel. It will give strength to the heart and will open up the heart centre.

Posture: Extend your arms straight out in front, parallel to the ground, palms facing down. Stretch out to your maximum.

Eyes: The eyes are closed and focused at the lunar center in the center of the chin.

Breath: The breath is long, slow, and deep.

Time: Continue for 3 minutes. Then inhale deeply and move slowly and directly into position for Exercise 3.

Part 3

Posture: Stretch your arms straight up with the palms facing forward. There is no bend in the elbows.

Eyes: The eyes are closed and focused at the lunar center.

Breath: The breath continues to be long, slow, and deep.

Time: Continue for 3minutes.To finish: Inhale, hold your breath for 10 seconds while you stretch your arms upward (try to stretch so much that your buttocks are lifted) and tighten all the muscles of your body. Exhale. Repeat this sequence two more times. This set can be found in Self-Knowledge

Lets learn how to use the neuroscience of the mind to select when we need to have critical thinking, ie be in a Beta wave or if being in this brain wave is just making us the critic? Or if we need to have creative ideas we relax our mind into an Alpha wave. Or do we need to solve a problem which we have been struggling with all our lives, then we need to access our subconscious mind by slowing our brain down into a Theta wave and allowing our deep wisdom to give us the answers. Finally do you want to enter into deep healing then we need to access the Delta wave. The technology of being to move between brain wave function can be accessed by the deep yogic science of Kundalini Yoga and meditation.

If you have a problem in the material world, then there is a solution to it. Just as every actions has a reaction equal and opposite the same goes for problems. The Problem is forgive my pun, when we come up against a challenge big or small our magnetic mind focusses in on the problem, and the more worried we become the more narrow our thoughts patterns become and we can only see one way or no way out of our problem. The solution resides in the opposite direction.

If you can get your mind into a Theta wave daily, we can ask the mind to solve our problems. This can be done via meditation or lucid dreaming used by some of the great inventor of our age, Thomas Edison being one. Once our brains waves start to slow down, it opens us up to the moment and in the present moment all solutions are available.

The other day my friend complimented me on my dress sense which I am not really known for, she of course is a designer. I said I did not have anything to wear for the festival we were attending so before my meditation I thought I need to find an outfit. During my meditation all the pieces of the outfit just came to me. I ended up wearing bits of clothing I had not worn in years. This is just a simple, superficial example but we can apply it to big problems, in how we relate, money issues, security, etc.

PRACTICAL POINTS- How do we reach this state daily? Here is a table of how your mind works it may be of use.

There are five distinct brain wave frequency ranges, beta, alpha, theta, delta and the lesser-known gamma. The higher the frequency, (which, confusingly, will equate to a lower number of cycles per second) the more subtle, or elevated.Beta (14-40Hz): Beta brain waves are associated with a heightened state of alertness, logic and critical reasoning. As one goes about one’s daily activities, one is in beta. Although important for effectively functioning in everyday life, higher beta levels translate into stress and anxiety. The voice of beta is the voice of one’s inner critic, which becomes louder and more relentless the higher you go in the range. Internal chatter stops one from being in this moment, creating a filter through which one’s view of the world must pass. This causes a perception of ‘separateness’.Alpha (7.5-14Hz): Alpha brain waves are present in deep relaxation with the eyes usually closed and while daydreaming. The relaxed, detached awareness achieved during the first three minutes of meditation is characteristic of alpha and is optimal for programming the mind for success. Alpha heightens the imagination, visualisation, memory, learning and concentration. It lies at the base of one’s conscious awareness and is the gateway to the subconscious mind. The voice of alpha is intuition, which becomes clearer and more profound the closer one gets to 7.5Hz.Theta (4-7.5Hz): Theta brain waves are present during deep meditation and light sleep, including the REM dream state. Theta is the realm of the subconscious. It is also known as the twilight state as it is normally only briefly experienced as one drifts off to sleep (from alpha) and arise from deep sleep (from delta). A sense of deep spiritual connection and oneness with the Infinite can be experienced at theta. These theta states are also associated with insight as well as the mind’s most deep-seated programs and patterns are all at theta. The voice of Theta is silence. Delta (0.5-4Hz): The delta frequency is the slowest and is present in deep, dreamless sleep and in very deep, transcendental meditation where awareness is completely detached. Delta is the realm of your unconscious mind. It is the gateway to the Universal mind and the collective unconscious whereby information received is otherwise unavailable at the conscious level. Delta is associated with deep healing and regeneration, underlining the importance of deep sleep to the healing process. I believe it is possible that this is the state reached during group sadhana, in those moments of chanting that feel so sweet and unified.The Alpha-Theta border, from 7 to 8Hz, is the optimal range for visualization, mind programming and using the creative power of one’s mind. It is the mental state at which one consciously creates one’s reality. At this frequency of mind control there is consciousness of one’s surroundings but the body is in deep relaxation. This is the state range most commonly experienced during Kundalini Yoga practice, when one’s has been elevated by tuning into the Golden Chain.Gamma (above 40Hz): The most recently discovered range is gamma, which is the fastest in frequency at above 40Hz (some researchers do not distinguish beta from gamma waves). Although little is known about this state of mind, initial research shows gamma waves are associated with bursts of insight and high-level information processing.Decide you are going to commit to yourself for 11mins per day to bring yourself to a state of deep relaxation and Theta. This does not mean looking at your iPad while meditating or sending a text it means I commit to myself for me to me. After the first 3 mins of meditation you should be nearing a Theta wave state but to really get those cycles of the mind down and get your solution you need to push on to 11mins which effects your nerves and glands to support this new mind set. Simply try 11 mins of left nostril breathing, i.e. tune in and breathe deeply in and out of your left nostril. Sat nam Fi x